New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on June 7, 2025, 7:25 am and is filed under Casino. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.